137 The Professional Counselor | Volume 13, Issue 2 For example, Mike reflected on where some of his personality and emotional traits stemmed from: I saw things that my dad would do, or my mom would do, and I would do the exact opposite of what they were both doing. [And I would be] like, “where am I getting this from?” You know, I don’t pick this up from either of them . . . I’m not part of them, so where’d I get this stuff that I do? Carla expressed sadness that when her adoptive parents died, she lost the possibility to learn more about her birth circumstances and identity. She expressed still feeling curiosity surrounding her identity as well as regret and bitterness associated with losing any potential of having questions answered by the people who were there when she was adopted. I had four parents I guess, and they’re all gone, and that just hit me as incredibly sad that I will never know. I’d always hoped she [adoptive mother] would come forth and be honest about what it was, what happened. I don’t know if she didn’t know, or if she just blocked it, or she was refusing. I don’t know, but with her died my story. The participants largely positioned their identity curiosity as a response of being an adoptee with an implicit assumption that if they were not adopted, some sense of self-identity would have been granted to them by their birth parents. Impact of Adoption Story This theme acknowledged that all the participants expressed in at least one way how their adoption story impacted their overall life narrative. The level of impact varied between the participants, but they all recognized their status as an adoptee was a significant component of their personhood. Ivan expressed that despite knowing his whole life he was adopted, he never had a desire to connect with his birth parents and never considered his adoptive parents to be anything other than his “real” parents. Even with these views, Ivan related a compelling adoption story of his birth mother being talked out of aborting him during a smoke break while she was waiting at the abortion clinic. Ivan felt this brush with almost having his life terminated had put a special meaning on his existence. The fact that I was minutes away from being aborted just always placed some sort of significance in my life where I say “I can’t waste my life.” . . . It’s given me a proponent to excel in life because if I was saved for a reason, I have that mentality in the back of my head because I know that story. Tonya also expressed a tumultuous adoption story that involved several years in which she tried to contact her biological mother. Tonya indicated that her adoptive parents “had always told me that I was adopted, but I don’t really think I understood when I was little what that all meant.” However, the knowledge of her status as an adopted child did eventually impact Tonya’s relationship with her adoptive mother as she grew up. She experienced anger toward her adoptive mom, stating that she had thoughts of her “not being my real mom.” But she is grateful that they were able to carve out a close relationship over time. Participants roughly characterized if they felt their adoption had been smooth or difficult. However, whether the participants felt positively or negatively about their adoption, they all acknowledged the experience of being an adoptee has been an important aspect of coming to terms with their identity. Overall, they felt it was an essential component of their life story.
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